[Remarks] Divine Favor: The Cleric

Continuing with this series of remarks on Open Design’s Divine Favor, today I’ll look at Divine Favor: The Cleric. Going into this one, I was wondering what new tips and tricks Open Design could possibly come up with. I mean, the cleric class goes all the way back to the first days of fantasy roleplaying and tons of material has been written. The Druid and the Paladin go back as well, but I’ve always felt they’ve never received as much attention and there was still room. Cleric? What else is there to say?

New Domains
The Alchemy domain gives a cleric class abilities akin to the Alchemist class. This is the one I have a hard time conceptualizing. I don’t think of clerics as messing with potions and mutagenics. I suppose there are deities a cleric could follow that would make this appropriate, but none jump immediately to my mind. Apocalypse makes more sense, a cleric who heralds oncoming doom. I will exploit this for evil NPCs, but in a player character I would think the character would need to be tied heavily to the setting or metaplot. Oracle as a domain gives the character class abilities similar to that character type. This works for me, because I find the Oracle to be limiting as a player character class, and making it a Cleric sub-class makes more sense to me. If I were to play an oracle-type character, I would go this route rather than use the oracle class.

New Subdomains
These present alternate abilities to existing domains; Books for the Rune domain, Entropy for the Apocalypse domain, Exorcism for Good and Protection domains, Gambling for the Luck domain, Horoscope for the Prophecy domain, Lies for the Trickery domain, Potions and Transmutation for the Alchemy domain, Truth for the Knowledge domain, Weapons for the War domain. There are a lot of good ideas for character bits, plot hooks, and general differentiation here. Again, I can think of ideas on how I’d use these for a cleric player character, and my mind is also clicking on ideas for interesting NPCs who could fill these niches.

New Archetypes
These archetypes get slightly different abilities and spells based on the role they play which is often a function of how they display and live their faith. The Ascetic denies pleasures of the flesh, and thus gains some control of their body regarding pain and damage. Charismatic is what it sounds like, utilizing bard-like influence. This makes total sense.  The Enthusiast has great fervor for her deity, and gets some nice benefits for that devotion. The Exorcist specializes in dealing with devils and demons. The Flagellent believes that suffering leads to reward, and wow, I have creepy NPC ideas here. The Theosophist is a scholarly cleric, and would make a great NPC advisor for spiritually-oriented player characters or a foil for scholarly mages. The Vatic is a sort of prophet, having specific visions of the future. The Weapon Sword grows closer to his deity by mastering that deity’s favorite weapon, which is a cool idea with a lot of usefulness in a fantasy campaign. Once more, we’ve bridged mechanical benefit and flavor for a nice balance of both. Wonder Worker gets very specialized, and works miracles through being very good at one class ability.

Variant Channeling
Rather than channeling energy to Heal or Harm, these are domain-based benefits. There is a Heal and Harm equivalent for each one. Instead of Heal, you might gain a bonus on a particular type of skill check or saving throw, and for Harm your opponent gets a penalty on same. These are really nice touches that make the domains pop a bit more, and add some versatility to channeling.

New Spells
Six new spells, three tied to luck and three more-or-less generically useful. Not the most rounded selection, but all good spells. Nice additions.

Summary
Okay, Open Design did it. They managed to find new things to say about clerics that are both interesting and useful. Well done, but the whole Divine Favor series has been well done so far.

Buy Divine Favor: The Cleric from Open Design

• Berin’s remarks on Divine Favor: The Druid
• Berin’s Remarks on Divine Favor: The Paladin
• Berin’s Remarks on Divine Favor: The Oracle
• Berin’s Remarks on Divine Favor: The Cleric
• Berin’s Remarks on Divine Favor: The Inquisitor